The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
